In yesterdays Gorton and Denton by-election, that Hannah Spencer of the Green Party won spectacularly, there was a claim by Democracy Volunteers that something called “family voting” was a major concern.
Farage has unsurprisingly used this as an opportunity to be racist, as well as set himself up for future election denial.
“What was witnessed yesterday is deeply concerning and raises serious questions about the integrity of the democratic process in predominantly Muslim areas.” - Farage
It is probably because of the right-wing’s promotion of this as an issue that we are talking about it now.
“Family voting” is not a legal term but it does describe an offence. The Ballot Secrecy Act 2023 makes it illegal to influence the vote of someone who is voting in a polling booth. It seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable law however the term that describes it is both vague and misleading - it does not refer only voter influencing within families but between anyone. It has, as far as I am aware, never been a talking point or well known issue before - as of now the Wikipedia pages for the act and the term are both basically empty and it doesn’t get a mention on the page about electoral fraud.
Democracy Volunteers are an election observation organisation funded by the Joseph Rowtree Reform Trust and the Andrew Wainwright Reform Trust. The Joseph Rowtree Reform Trust is one of the three trusts that Joseph Rowtree set up and is completely separate from the better known Joseph Rowntree Foundation. However the lesser known trust seems to be built on the same Quaker ideals and do good things, although I haven’t looked into it completely. The Andrew Wainwright Reform Trust are a similarly progressive trust who have given a grant to Democracy Volunteers specifically for assessing “family voting”. Democracy Volunteers is also one of the few organisations that is accredited by the Electoral Commission (PDF) for observing elections in the UK, something which requires strict impartiality.
Democracy Volunteers have been concerned about “family voting” for a long time, longer in fact than it has been specifically illegal. The 2023 act started as a private members bill in the House of Lords by Lord Hayward, a Conservative peer who inexplicably has a mostly empty page on the Democracy Volunteers site. The reports by Democracy Volunteers probably helped it pass into law and I think it is plausible that Democracy Volunteers were the architects of the bill, approaching Hayward to introduce it.
Despite their breathless press release, Democracy Volunteers seems to see “family voting” at basically every election it observes - apparently they have seen it in 23% of UK polling stations. This is almost certainly because their definition is very broad, much broader than the law, encompassing any communication with a voter, even if is not influencing the vote. It’s not even clear from their definition if the voter even has to be in the booth. I understand that as an observer it can probably be hard to judge if a vote is being influenced, but Democracy Volunteers should know the limitations of their data and not make dramatic announcements about the integrity of elections unless they have good evidence.
This is purely speculation, but I do wonder if Democracy Volunteers feels under pressure to report that “family voting” is commonplace because of the grant it has been given to investigate it.
It is notable that Democracy Volunteers sees this where no other organisations seem to have noticed it, either in this election or any other. The acting return officer, an impartial official who runs the election, said that Democracy Volunteers had not raised the issue during the election (instead waiting until after polls closed) and that poll staff, who are trained to look out for it, had not reported it.
I would not be against officials looking into this further, as Democracy Volunteers do seem to be a relatively unbiased organisation, however without more evidence (or any evidence at all, in fact) I am not persuaded that this is the massive problem that they make it out to be.